


The Price of Life

by meteorfest



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Gen, amica fic, author makes their friends and themself sad, speculative fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-19
Updated: 2017-08-19
Packaged: 2018-12-17 10:13:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11849442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meteorfest/pseuds/meteorfest
Summary: Nautica has to pay the price of bringing Skids back.Speculative fic for Lost Light #9. Potential spoilers.





	The Price of Life

**Author's Note:**

> I was discussing what the price Nautica will have to pay would be with my friend and then I started writing until I made myself cry, so now I gotta make others cry.
> 
> Not ship-fic.

"So you can bring him back?"   
  
The Catharsian nodded, but stood firm by the door even as she let Nautica and Velocity inside, away from prying eyes. This was Troja Major, after all, and business was business. "I won't do it, however, until you pay a price equal to the cost of his life."   
  
Velocity's hand came up to grip at Nautica's arm. Worried gold optics turned to her friend, she gave a shake of her head. "Nautica, you don't know what the cost could be," she warned. "Think about this."   
  
Nautica gently pulled her arm from Velocity's grip and shifted to take hold of her hand, giving a gentle squeeze. "I _have_ thought about it. I've been thinking about it since since Anode brought Lug back. I won't give up on Skids. He paid the ultimate price for us. It's my turn to pay him back."   
  
"I'm not sure he'd want you to." Velocity squeezed back at Nautica's hand, her worry growing by the second.    
  
"I'm not sure he would, either," Nautica admitted. She touched her free hand to the patch she'd replaced over the precious circuitry she'd had Kaput put into place. "But I _am_  sure that I'm willing to do whatever, pay whatever it takes to bring him back. He didn't deserve to die."   
  
Nautica turned to the Catharsian before Velocity could try to talk her out of this. "Name your price."   
  
* * * * *   
  
Skids hadn't believed in the Afterspark for so long that wondering, however briefly, if that was where he was when his optics came online that it actually shocked him. His first thoughts of the Afterspark were quickly lost in a litany of questions, fears, realizations, horrifications, and, worst of all, memories.   
  
He started to sit up, but a large hand held him down.    
  
"Easy there." An unfamiliar voice cut through the cacophony of his own mind and Skids found himself looking at a mech he didn't recognize. "You were just brought into this world. If you move too fast, your body will not be pleased. Ease into it."   
  
Brought back? Back _how_? Skids tried to ask the question, but his mouth refused to move, his voice refused to work. He let his vision adjust to the darkness of the room and he caught sight of someone familiar.   
  
"L...Velo - ty?" His mouth half-formed his friend's name, but still struggled to work. He reached his hand out to her. She moved over, putting on her doctor's face and checked him over, but under that mask of professionalism, Skids could see sorrow and pain and it only had more questions running through his newly-reborn mind.   
  
What had happened? How was he brought back? Where was -    
  
"Nau...tic...a?"   
  
Nautica should be there with Velocity. If anyone had found a way to bring Skids back, it would have been Nautica, and he knew she would have been at his side when he came to. Velocity was Skids' friend, yes, but Nautica had always been closer to him than the other Camien, who had come to the Lost Light late and slower to warm up to Skids. Nautica had asked Skids to be her amica endura; Velocity hadn't.   
  
So why wasn't Nautica there?   
  
"She's outside," Velocity replied after she was satisfied that Skids was physically fine - of course, physically, he would be fine; it was a brand new frame, brand new spark. It was just -   
  
\- miraculous.   
  
But Velocity knew the price that had been paid for this miracle.   
  
Skids slowly sat up again, guided by both Velocity and the Catharsian. He asked them to help him outside, his new body still too fresh to understand Skids' command to move, his desire to walk, to get outside and see his friend.   
  
"Skids, maybe you should wait," Velocity suggested. Again, there was a grief about her that Skids could sense, but didn't understand.    
  
"There's something wrong," Skids replied. His mouth was finally letting him get the words he wanted out. There was much, still, that he wanted to say, questions he wanted to ask, but the most important thing at that moment was getting to Nautica. She should have been there. “Velocity, what aren’t you telling me?”

Velocity didn’t answer as they stepped outside. Skids didn’t recognize the world around him, crowded marketplace all around, but he easily caught sight of Nautica and he called her name. Nautica turned at the call and Skids was half-horrified to see the patch over her optic cavity - hadn’t Velocity fixed her optic while they’d been holed up in the Necrobot’s fortress? 

What had happened? Why weren’t they at the fortress? Skids started to pull out of Velocity’s hold to go towards Nautica, but he stopped when he saw the look on her face -

\- that blank, unknowing look as her gaze met his. The same look that Skids had often made when he didn’t remember something or couldn’t recall someone he’d met before. 

“Lottie, are you going to introduce me to your friend or not?” Nautica asked, looking to her friend at Skids’ side.

Skids had known he’d been dead, had felt the moment when his spark had extinguished. Bringing him back, as Velocity had said they’d done, would have cost a fortune - one that couldn’t be paid in such a meaningless way as money. The price of life was dear and Nautica had paid with her memories, those equal to the cost of Skids’ life; the memories that had built their friendship. 

To gain was to lose and Nautica had gained her amica endura back, but lost every memory that had made Skids her amica in the first place.

Skids wanted to cry like the newborn he now was. He wouldn’t though - not in front of his amica. So he swallowed down his grief and gave Nautica a soft smile, trying to hide the pain he felt. 

"Skids,” he told her. “My name is Skids.”   



End file.
